


come through (for me)

by undeliveredtruth



Series: distance [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Chaebol au, Fighting, M/M, Mild Painplay, Rough Sex, Taeyong-centric, complicated relationship, mentions of drug use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 20:21:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29284461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/undeliveredtruth/pseuds/undeliveredtruth
Summary: Doyoung respects him. Respects his intelligence, respects his presence, respects his body when he carefully presses Taeyong into the Egyptian cotton sheets of their bed and fucks him so gently Taeyong’s skin catches fire.Once, Taeyong wished Doyoung would respect him a little less.Three years later, however, he doesn’t quite have the same desire.
Relationships: Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung/Lee Taeyong
Series: distance [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2157312
Comments: 25
Kudos: 118





	come through (for me)

**Author's Note:**

> Well… I was planning to make my NCT fic debut with this 50k post-canon domestic Dotae, but… I had two hours on a bus today and this took shape. Plus, I think it’s more fitting to me to start with a slightly fucked up relationship, so… I hope you enjoy it! Dotae have been my muses recently and I’m going to write so much more for them whew.
> 
> PLEASE mind the tags! This fic features mentions of hard drug use, a questionable relationship (wouldn't call it unhealthy, but it's complicated), and a pretty rough sex scene that follows from fighting and includes some pain play. Please don't read if you're uncomfortable!

Taeyong is lucky someone like Kim Doyoung even looked at him, his mother likes to remind him.

 _Well, it’s all your fucking fault,_ Taeyong wants to shove it in her face every single time without fail. There is no love lost between his parents and him because there wasn’t much love there in the first place, no space for him in their hearts ever since Taeyong was little.

Plus, he knows this is his mother’s way of taking out her own frustration and insecurities. He doesn’t deny it to her.

So he holds back.

The thing is, Taeyong has known Kim Doyoung since they were eight years old and attending the same prestigious elementary school, and Doyoung has looked at him in the exact same way since then.

A little bit adoring, a little bit worshipping, a little bit jealous. Doyoung used to, and still does, fall silent when Taeyong enters a room, leaves his eyes open wide and mouth hanging open a little before he remembers to close it, swallowing and schooling his face in a blank, posed expression.

Taeyong is still familiar with that look. Can still see it every time he wears one of the bespoke Kiton suits Doyoung had tailored for him, lines crisp in all the right places and their wedding ring shining on Taeyong’s finger. Whenever Taeyong whips up dinner in under an hour that is restaurant-style quality, taking the time to set the table just right as well. When they pore over papers and documents for hours on end, but Taeyong figures it out nonetheless, no matter how difficult.

Doyoung looks at him like he can’t believe Taeyong is real. That much hasn’t changed, except Taeyong is now technically Doyoung’s, and that look puts a distance between them they can’t seem to get over. Like Taeyong is beautiful, ethereal, otherworldly... but ultimately almost not human. Something Doyoung will never be able to grasp.

Taeyong still can’t really grapple with how that makes him feel.

However, when all the world made him feel like the lowest piece of trash, Doyoung was the only one who still looked at him like that. And for that, Taeyong guesses he is grateful.

The thing is, once upon a time, Taeyong had potential. Way more potential than Doyoung.

Potential is an understatement. Once upon a time, Taeyong was the name on everyone’s lips, the second heir to one of the largest companies in Korea, the most eligible bachelor, the one who arrived at functions with pretty models on his arm and commanded the power in the room.

He had worked his entire life for it—had graduated top of his class from elementary school until college, had gotten used to not sleeping for more than 2 to 3 hours a night doing whatever he had to do to push further, get involved in the company as much as he could, showed his father he was worth as much of a role as he gave his sister. Taeyong pushed, and worked, and gave everything he had, way more than he had really, _significantly_ more than he could take because he knew that one day he would reap the rewards, it would pay out...

And then it didn’t.

Taeyong had known before it made the papers, but just a few weeks before. His father’s twisted contracts with a Japanese company selling questionably legal, completely immorally-acquired land, and it had all crumbled. Taeyong had slept 8 hours in two weeks trying to figure out a way to not have it all go to shit while living with the impending knowledge that it would twisting in its chest.

And just like that, Lee became the most hated name in all of Korea. Taeyong became the scrape at the bottom of the barrel, the one met with disgusted gazes and even more disgusted words. He lost his reputation, his wealth, and his friends. Lost everything without fail.

Lost himself too, in alcohol and clubs with strangers who wanted to be seen with him because of who he once was, half-condescending and half-ridiculing, showing Taeyong off, _look who it is, that guy, him._

That’s where he met Doyoung again. They hadn’t talked since college, maybe, certainly had stopped being friends since long before high school, but he walked into the private room of the club with a pretty girl hanging off his arm and found Doyoung staring at him with that same look he had since elementary school.

Taeyong was drunk and thus prone to bad decisions, but falling to his knees for Doyoung in the bathroom of the club wasn’t one, in the larger scheme of things. Doyoung had been respectful—way too respectful for Taeyong, who just wanted to be fucked and wrecked until he forgot who he was. He rested a hand carefully on Taeyong’s hair, not even gripping or pulling, just... resting there. He bit his fist in his mouth to not make any noise although he was clearly affected, and had come in a wad of balled-up toilet paper, careful not to land any come on Taeyong. Not even in Taeyong’s mouth.

Respectful. Doyoung respected him when no one else did.

Doyoung still respects him. Today, three years after the arranged marriage Taeyong never dreamed Doyoung would agree to, Doyoung still respects him.

Make no mistake—Taeyong knows who Doyoung is out there in the world. Knows he’s a cruel, heartless man—otherwise, he would not have made it that far at the young age of 29, controlling a powerful subsidiary of his father’s business that he helped develop from the ground up. Not in the world that they live in, where every shred of compassion is a mistake that will cost you your life.

Taeyong had the pleasure to see that part of Doyoung many times, now as the pretty trophy hanging off his arm at functions and business deals. Making moving, powerful speeches at charity events for orphaned children, _the future of Korea,_ and snorting lines of cocaine in smoke-filled back rooms of private clubs, strippers clad in barely-nothing grinding in his lap as his eyes fixed on Taeyong. It’s because Doyoung respects him that Taeyong was even there, watching Doyoung’s dilated pupils as he closed business deals that can only be closed in such spaces and added a few more billions to his bank account and a bit more power to his name. It’s because Doyoung respects him that he allowed Taeyong to drag him over the front door of the penthouse and make him drink glasses of water as he suffered the aftermath of his decisions, emptying his stomach while kneeling on their marble-tiled bathroom floor.

_What do you think? What’s the right move? What should I do?_

It’s because Doyoung respects him that he comes to Taeyong with questions like those, hanging off his every word. Taeyong is rarely wrong, which Doyoung knows, because Taeyong had his own demons to face in his quest to become the king of hell, and came out with knowledge to match.

Doyoung listens, nods, and goes out and does most often what Taeyong suggested. While Taeyong should be thankful... he almost wishes Doyoung would push back sometimes. Once, Taeyong had intentionally fed him such bullshit advice it sounded grating to his own ears, but Doyoung nodded just the same, listened just the same.

Did the exact opposite and won the deal, of course, but he never fucking said a word to Taeyong. They didn’t fight, never did, really.

Doyoung respects him. Respects his intelligence, respects his presence, respects his body when he carefully presses Taeyong into the Egyptian cotton sheets of their bed and fucks him so gently Taeyong’s skin catches fire.

Once, Taeyong wished Doyoung would respect him a little less.

Three years later, however, he doesn’t quite have the same desire.

Doyoung respects him because he doesn’t love him. Pushing back on his words, seeing Taeyong vulnerable, fucking Taeyong to break him, all of that would mean crossing the line, twisting their relationship into something Doyoung doesn’t want to have and putting them on the same level, more into the realm of love and partnership rather than the fucked-up dynamic they have now.

Doyoung doesn’t want love. In this world, Doyoung can’t afford the weakness that Taeyong is way too close to being, and Taeyong has learned to respect that.

Once though, once. Once Doyoung had come home way more fucked up than he should have been and worried Taeyong fucking sick when he almost didn’t wake up the next day. Their doctors assured him he would be okay, which Taeyong felt fucking relieved at, but goddamn, when Doyoung woke up... Taeyong unleashed on him the rage he felt, shouting expletives and blame at Doyoung for being such a fucking idiot and putting himself in harm’s way like that, for—

For the first time in forever, Doyoung’s eyes fell, and he looked at Taeyong the same way he looked at the people who fucked up something serious at work. With superiority and scorn, a look meant to have the strongest person shake in their boots with fear.

But Taeyong didn’t stop. Taeyong pushed, and _pushed_ , and kept hitting Doyoung with his words, and his gestures, and even a hand on his chest, and Doyoung?

Doyoung told him to _shut the fuck up._

When the words curled around Taeyong’s ear, he almost grinned.

But didn’t. He kept pushing, prodding at the spots that he knew would get to Doyoung, watching as his fists curled and his back drew into himself.

_You’re such a selfish bastard, Kim Doyoung, you’d risk your entire family and me—_

Taeyong didn’t finish this sentence, because suddenly, a hand was at his throat, pressing him into the wall of their living room. Doyoung was _seething,_ teeth gritted together and his hand choking Taeyong, _way_ too tight until Taeyong put his own hand under it and ripped it from his neck, challenging Doyoung.

Further. More. Doyoung pushed him to the wall again, slamming his back into the exposed concrete, and it _hurt_ , and Taeyong fucking _loved it._ More. Taeyong took off Doyoung’s hands from him again and again and again, pushing back and inviting him for more, pushing and pushing… until he couldn’t anymore, with the concrete rubbing marks on his chest and cheek and cock pressed to the wall as Doyoung pressed up into him again and again, only spit easing his way, and Taeyong finally, _finally_ felt like he wanted to feel all this time. His hair gripped tight in Doyoung’s hand, both his wrists trapped in one of Doyoung’s and pressed uncomfortably against his back; Taeyong could have gotten away, but _god_ he never wanted to be anywhere more than this. Doyoung had come quicker than him, filling him up and easing the slide as he continued to give it to Taeyong as rough as before, digging his teeth into his shoulder and his earlobe, moaning curses in Taeyong’s ear.

Taeyong couldn’t forget it if he tried, not in his wildest dreams, how Doyoung quickened his pace and leaned over to groan the fateful words in his ear.

_I couldn’t have imagined when I begged your mother to let me marry you that this is what you’d do to me._

Taeyong had come right after. Doyoung pulled out, leaving Taeyong there to crumble on the floor and catch his breath, the words ringing in his ear again and again.

Doyoung asked to marry him. Doyoung had started this all, not his mother. Not his family.

However, Taeyong wasn’t foolish enough to imagine that the words had inadvertently slipped out of Doyoung’s mouth in the throes of passion. Of course not. Doyoung is the most calculated person Taeyong has ever met, even in front of him—they were spoken on purpose.

 _Know your place,_ the words had told him, clear as day.

And from that day on—Taeyong did. Doyoung had apologized barely hours after, cooking for Taeyong and sounding genuinely regretful. Taeyong didn’t regret it in the slightest, but he realized Doyoung needed the apology more than him.

From that day on, Taeyong made his home on the pedestal that Doyoung custom built for him and learned to be comfortable there, holding himself up to those standards. Pushing further even in helping Doyoung, becoming more familiar with his company, taking on responsibilities.

A few weeks later, word started going around. How Lee Taeyong was just as uninformed as his mother about the whole deal, orchestrated solely by his father and his sister. Enough so that a few months later, Taeyong was cleared at his final trial, and slowly found his name spoken in tones and syllables that seemed to resemble those of years before. Doyoung's influence, for certain.

The day Taeyong won his trial, Doyoung had come home with an envelope he handed Taeyong. _Employment Contract,_ the papers he pulled out spelled out in bold, large letters. Taeyong signed it and became the newest Financial Manager at Doyoung’s subsidiary company. A new journey.

Doyoung doesn’t love Taeyong. The more Doyoung respects him, regards him with _that_ look in his eyes, the less Taeyong finds he loves him in return.

But that’s okay.

Love is weakness—and Taeyong doesn’t need to be weak anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on [twt](https://twitter.com/bbysvts) and [cc](https://curiouscat.me/bbysvts)! Hope you enjoyed this and please leave a comment if you’d like (would especially appreciate it since I’m still getting the hang of them)!


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